The Conservative leader’s office confirmed to the Star that Poilievre is not eligible to cast any votes in Alberta — including the 10 referendum questions that will be posed to electors. Pierre Poilievre, the only federal leader who is an Alberta MP, will not have a direct say in a referendum that could set his home province on a path...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s deputy chief of staff is considering a bid for elected office with a run in the Vancouver-area riding that is being vacated by former Liberal natural resources minister Jonathan Wilkinson, two sources say. If Braeden Caley decides to seek the nomination in Mr. Wilkinson’s North Vancouver-Capilano riding, it would create a vacancy at the senior level...
How do you MAGA - Make America Great Again? According to Mark Carney, the answer is, MCS, Make Canada Strong. That was part of the message the PM gave American business leaders in New York yesterday and guess who was clapping? Pete Hoekstra, one of Donald Trump's leading Canadian critics, is the U.S. ambassador to Canada. It's been quite a...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says Prime Minister Mark Carney's policies are to blame for Canada entering recession territory. Statistics Canada says the economy contracted slightly for the second quarter in a row to start the year, a benchmark some economists consider a technical recession. Poilievre says there's nothing technical about rising rates of mortgage delinquency, increased food bank usage and...
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Canada wants to boost trade with China by 50 per cent in the next four years while protecting its national security interests, as she welcomed her Chinese counterpart to Ottawa. She made no mention on Friday of the fact a Canadian warship transited the Taiwan Strait days before Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s high-stakes...
The Liberals maintain a clear lead in federal voter preferences at 41.1%, ahead of the Conservatives at 32.7%, though the margin has narrowed to single digits, indicating a more competitive environment may be emerging. Other parties remain well behind, with the NDP at 12.6% and smaller shares for the Bloc, Greens and People’s Party. Public attention continues to centre on...
When I first went to Ottawa as a member of Parliament, I didn’t go because I believed the system was working. Quite the opposite. Like many Albertans, I was frustrated. Western Canada was too often ignored, our industries were misunderstood and decisions affecting our livelihoods were being made by people who had little understanding of how this country works outside...
Steven Guilbeault is gone, but, oh, the wreckage he leaves behind. No single politician, apart from ex-prime minister Justin Trudeau, did more to create today’s separatist movement in this province. The former environment minister’s extremist climate policies, coupled with massive expansion of federal power, imprinted a fixed belief that Liberal Ottawa despises Alberta and can never be trusted.
Canadian defence manufacturer Roshel says it is not going to cancel the sale of armoured vehicles to the United States government used by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, despite calls from some opposition MPs to do so. “We never had contracts with ICE. We have contracts with the [U.S.] State Department. We’re not considering, never considered to cancel any of...
OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Mark Carney told Pope Leo XIV on Friday that Canada wants to take a leadership role in the responsible development of artificial intelligence.
Canada’s selection as home to the new Defence, Security and Resilience Bank affirms our country’s credibility with its allies and its leadership at a time when defence, security and economic resilience is critical. Nova Scotia was one of the first to raise our hand in support of Canada’s bid.
I have a pretty good idea what a lot of people think I should say about Alberta’s sovereignty referendum, and I have a good idea of what I actually think. The problem is the two don’t line up very well. What a lot of people think that I (and others like me) should say is, mostly, nothing. As an opinionator...
As Alberta careens toward a bedevilling referendum this fall, Team Canada finds itself in desperate need of a captain. Premier Danielle Smith got us into this mess, so it shouldn’t be her. Provincial NDP leader Naheed Nenshi, an unimpressive adversary of the premier’s thus far, would be an uninspired choice.
The battle for the heart of the UCP is finally on. Premier Danielle Smith’s ministers and MLAs are firing out messages to current and former party members. It’s time to take the UCP back from the fringe separatists. That’s the theme.
The reality is that many Albertans — and not just those already convinced that separation is the only answer — are legitimately frustrated with their province’s status in Canada.
The speech Mark Carney delivered to the Economic Club of New York on Thursday was many things. In the room, it was a stability balm amid a global drama: Canada is the reasonable, rational source of solutions, not problems. “A country that’s predictable, reliable and principled in a world that’s anything but,” Carney said in his summation. As a narrative...
As the Western premiers pulled on Team Canada soccer jerseys at the close of their meeting in Kananaskis on Tuesday, some kind of barbed comment was inevitable. Wab Kinew obliged. “I just want to tell Premier (Danielle) Smith, that she looks great in a Team Canada jersey,” the Manitoba premier said, pointedly. As host of the conference, Smith may have...
Canada will buy the GlobalEye aircraft from Swedish manufacturer Saab, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on Wednesday at the CANSEC defence industry conference in Ottawa. Canadians could be forgiven for having two questions: What does that mean? And also, what does it mean?
Important referendums are usually defeated. But successful or not, they always divide families, communities and nations. The wreckage stems from the high emotion, the purely polemical arguments and, most often, the nasty personal attacks that are part of a referendum circus. Canada, like most advanced democracies, has held very few referendums. In part, that is so because governments don’t like...
Canada has plenty of land, relatively few people, and a housing affordability problem. What’s this got to do with high speed rail? The discussion around housing affordability often stalls out at the conundrum of how to protect the asset values of those who own homes today, while at the same time giving those who want to own a home a...
If our troops are fighting in Latvia, or if Ottawa fails to renew CUSMA, a more North American policy could gain favour with voters
Liberal MP Steven Guilbeault was, for a time, the right man for the moment. That moment was 2019 and a few years that followed, before the worst polarizing effects and economic shockwaves of the COVID pandemic took hold and climate change still rates as a top political concern for Canadians. Guilbeault, a former Greenpeace activist turned Liberal politician, based much...
The horror! The horror! Before the night is over, one side will paint a horrifying picture of an independent Alberta and the other side will speak of shameless fear mongering. The man was ready. He had what he believed was his ace in the hole. He was just waiting for the chance to use it. It didn’t take long.
Premier Danielle Smith was taking heat from other western premiers over separatism Tuesday when an astonishing statement hit the airwaves. The president of the UCP, Rob Smith (no relation), said the governing party will not take a stand on whether Alberta should separate or not. That’s Danielle Smith’s party. The one
Imagine, if you will, an Alberta of endless opportunities. The landscape glistens with a thousand shiny new data centres, each of them furiously mining bitcoin. The Alberta Provincial Police patrol the highways. Go 300km in either direction, and the poor citizens of Canada are living in globalist tyranny. This is Danielle Smith’s Alberta.
If 20% leave turns into 40% for Smith’s “maybe” option - Alberta will have avoided a near term crisis, but saddled itself with the image of a place that is unsettled and unpredictable. Most of the time, referendums result in people deciding to maintain the status quo. In 26 national referendums across 26 countries, questions about maintaining an existing policy...
Outside Alberta, a political consensus is emerging — not just on how the Alberta referendum should turn out, but on whether it should be held at all. That in itself is remarkable, but it does risk driving some further wedges into the national-unity debate that this referendum has set in motion.
Prime Minister John A. Macdonald famously described dealing with provincial leaders as “herding cats.” He was right on the money: like cats, premiers will purr loudly to get what they want but ignore you when it suits them. Or worse, lure you in and scratch you when you least expect it. But MacDonald knew how to cajole them, humour them...
Canadians need to stare down the stark reality of what happened in Alberta this week. Premier Danielle Smith has moved her province closer to separation than it has ever been. This brewing national-unity crisis has not come about from the tyranny of the majority — it has been created by a minority wielding too much power for its size, and...
Premier Danielle Smith’s referendum question could get slammed to a halt by Ottawa. “This is a very dangerous bluff,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said Monday, in a powerful put-down of Smith’s referendum question. That’s the quote everybody noticed. More consequential was his statement that Ottawa will review Smith’s two-pronged question to see if it conforms to the federal Clarity Act...
She affirmed she stands with Canada and will continue to do so all the way to the possible breakup of the country, which she opposes but is determinedly helping along
Mark Carney was asked Monday about his role in the forthcoming Alberta referendum campaign and the response was reassuring. The prime minister wasn’t exactly Henry V at Agincourt on St. Crispin’s Day, rallying his outnumbered troops in a call to arms. But he is a veteran of these campaigns from his time in the United Kingdom during the Brexit and...
We are living through a moment when our democracy, unity, and international engagement are once again being tested. In the last week alone, I’ve spoken at the Together/Ensemble conference in Calgary on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, followed by the Democratic Engagement Exchange dialogue on the state of Canada’s democratic health. The bad news is that our politics seems precarious...
Unless you had to go fill your gas tank after the long weekend — like this loser, right here — you could almost be forgiven for forgetting the war in the Middle East is still ongoing, sort of. Especially as the White House seems to be much more focused on us and its other neighbours. The Third Persian Gulf War...
ST. JOHN'S -- The Newfoundland and Labrador government has dropped a lawsuit challenging the federal equalization program.
Elections Alberta says a massive hiring effort for the fall referendum on the province's place in Canada will get underway early next month. The agency says 60,000 or more elections officers will be needed to hand count the votes, which provincial law dictates must be done within 48 hours after polling stations close. It says all positions are paid and...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s ambitious spending promises earned standing ovations from Canada’s defense industry this week. Now he faces his next challenge: turning those promises into contracts. “My business depends on it being faster, and jobs and investment depend on it being faster,” Eliot Pence, the founder of Ottawa-based startup Dominion Dynamics, told POLITICO of the procurement process.
Drones made in Canada could be headed for the battlefield in Ukraine, thanks to a new corporate partnership between Canadian and Ukrainian drone makers. The defence ministers of Canada and Ukraine signed an agreement to support the co-production of drones on the margins of the CANSEC defence trade show in the nation's capital this week.
The federal government posted a deficit of $55.28 billion for its 2025-26 fiscal year compared with a $43.15-billion deficit a year earlier, according to the Finance Department's monthly fiscal monitor report. The department cautioned the figures were not the final result for the 2025-26 fiscal year, which will include additional end-of-year adjustments and be published in the public accounts for...
U.S. President Donald Trump says the U.S. blockade on ships travelling through the Strait of Hormuz “will now be lifted.” “Ships caught in the Strait due to our amazing and unprecedented Naval Blockade, which will now be lifted, may start the process of ‘heading home!’ Say HELLO to your wives, husbands, parents, and families from me, your favorite President!” reads...
Statistics Canada says economic growth stalled in the first quarter, leading to a second consecutive decline in real gross domestic product. That meets some definitions for a technical recession, though not all economists weighing in on StatCan's Friday report were convinced the label was necessary. Real gross domestic product by expenditure was essentially unchanged on a quarter-over-quarter basis, StatCan said...
An untold number of Ugandans, Congolese and South Sudanese nationals who were already in Canada when the federal government brought in Ebola virus-related travel restrictions for residents of those three countries have had their visas suspended, CBC News has learned. The move does not kick them out of Canada, but it effectively bars them from international travel because they would...
China's foreign minister Wang Yi is in Ottawa today, the first such visit in a decade. He is in Canada for a three-day trip that will include meetings with Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand and Prime Minister Mark Carney. The prime minister visited China in January and met with President Xi Jinping.
After announcing his resignation over the Carney government’s climate policies, Liberal MP Steven Guilbeault said he wouldn’t rule out returning to federal politics under a different prime minister. “I’m certainly not closing the door to future possibilities,” he said when asked if he would return under another prime minister. “It’s been an amazing experience and certainly not one that I...
Employing U.S. President Donald Trump’s marquee slogan, Prime Minister Mark Carney told a New York City business crowd on Thursday that “Canada strong will help make America great again,” a remark the U.S. envoy to this country said was “worth repeating.” Speaking at the Economic Club of New York, the prime minister detailed his economic diversification strategy, and his plans...
The B.C. Conservatives are expected to announce their new leader on Saturday, nearly six months after John Rustad was chased out of office. But the announcement at a leadership convention in Vancouver could also represent a pivotal moment for the governing NDP, which Angus Reid Institute president Shachi Kurl says has suffered a "brutal, bruising" spring session. "It has not...
Central Newfoundland Member of Parliament Clifford Small and his company are being sued for over $353,000 in unpaid restaurant rent and taxes. In recent months, statements of claim have been filed by both the property owner and the City of Mount Pearl. Small’s parliamentary office has declined to comment at this time.
The Manitoba government says it is facing potential legal action over its decision to halt rebates for the electric vehicles produced by automaker Tesla. Premier Wab Kinew says the government has received a notice from Tesla Motors Canada that it intends to seek a judicial review of the decision. Kinew says the government will only consider reversing its decision if...
Alberta's upcoming referendum question on separation was made official Thursday, and it mirrors what Premier Danielle Smith announced last week. Smith and her cabinet issued an order in council confirming the date and format of the Oct. 19 referendum, along with the question. It will ask voters to pick one of two options. Option one reads: "Alberta should remain a...
The Conservatives are calling on the Liberal government to "reject" the CRTC's recent decision tripling streamers' financial contributions. The broadcast regulator said last week large online streaming services must contribute 15 per cent of their Canadian revenues to Canadian content. Conservative MP Rachael Thomas put forward a motion in the House of Commons today calling on cabinet to use its...
Swedish defence firm Saab says if Ottawa chooses to buy its Gripen E fighter jets, Canada could end up making some of the ones destined for Ukraine's air force. Saab says up to 20 of its Gripen jets will be built for Ukraine under a European Union support loan agreement and Sweden will donate 16 older-model Gripens to the war-torn country.
Bid matches South Korean promise and includes billions in proposed economic investments. Should the Liberal government decide to go with the ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) bid, the German shipbuilder has now pledged to deliver four Type 212-CD submarines to the Canadian Navy by 2036, the country’s defence minister tells CBC News. Boris Pistorius said Wednesday that he has every confidence...
Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump are “constantly” in touch and will meet during the G7 summit in France next month as the review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade deal, or CUSMA, is drawing closer, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said Thursday. The trade deal, which was signed in 2018 and touches virtually all trade between Canada, the U.S...
Carney says Canada and U.S. need a 'new partnership.' Prime Minister Mark Carney told a crowd of New York industry titans and financiers on Thursday that Canada and the U.S. need to pursue a new partnership — a bilateral relationship premised not on how things were done in the past but one where a stronger, more independent Canada can selectively...
A Canadian warship transited the Taiwan Strait that’s claimed by China as an internal waterway – in defiance of Beijing’s warning – days before a high-stakes visit by the Chinese Foreign Minister to Ottawa. The frigate HMCS Charlottetown made the trip last week, the Department of National Defence said Thursday. “On May 22, 2026, HMCS Charlottetown conducted a routine transit...
Prime Minister Mark Carney told an audience of business professionals in New York City on Thursday that Canada's efforts to diversify its trade and wean itself off the U.S. market make it a better ally. Carney spoke to the Economic Club of New York, outlining Canada's economic strategy and the progress made so far. It's part of his government's efforts...
Even as B.C. Premier David Eby argues that his province is delivering on helping grow a Canadian economy battered by U.S. trade attacks, he said the "omnipresent" issue of a referendum on Alberta separatism has made the situation more delicate. "We're talking, simultaneously, about unifying policy across provinces and territories to reduce friction — at the same time as Alberta...
Alberta election officials say while the province's question on quitting Canada hasn't been written in stone, it will be at the top of an ordered stack of ten ballots. Elections Alberta says 10 referendum questions to be put to Albertans on Oct. 19 will be colour-coded, and voters won't need to mark the box on every question. Premier Danielle Smith...
Ontario Liberal caucus member Rob Cerjanec has tossed his hat into the party's leadership race.?? The rookie legislator who won the Ajax riding in 2025 will be running under the slogan "Let's Build Ontario" and he pledges to rebuild the party.? Cerjanec says he will focus on affordability measures and improving the education and health-care systems.
A government source said it’s doubtful the bill will clear committee before the start of the summer recess next month as too many stakeholders want to testify at committee.
A standoff between Premier Danielle Smith and her own United Conservative Party on the issue of separation is over -- and the premier has won. Premier Smith and party president Rob Smith had been at odds over where they stand on Alberta staying in Canada ahead of a fall referendum on the matter. The premier says she wants Alberta to...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is abandoning efforts by his predecessor to reintroduce into the Canadian Human Rights Act the ability to bring forward complaints of online hate speech. The controversial provision, known as section 13, was repealed under the former Conservative government of Stephen Harper, with efforts to revive it advanced by former prime minister Justin Trudeau as part...
A Canadian Crown corporation is considering legal action against Colombia after that country’s Ministry of National Defence cancelled a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars to construct its new ministry headquarters. The Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC), a Crown corporation that reports to International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu, confirmed Colombian’s Ministry of National Defence had "terminated" the contract.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is in New York City Thursday to meet with business leaders as the relationship between Canada and the United States remains rocky ahead of a review of the continental trade pact. The Prime Minister's Office has not identified the CEOs, entrepreneurs, business leaders and money managers Carney is expected to meet with to pitch Canada as...
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) -- New York Giants linebacker Abdul Carter said Friday he felt the need to call out quarterback Jaxson Dart publicly for introducing President Donald Trump at a rally last week.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, the president proclaimed "TRUMP'S MAKING FOOD AFFORDABLE," and cited falling prices for a range of groceries, including avocados, fresh berries, and a variety of pantry staples. Yet just two weeks earlier the Labor Department had released inflation figures showing grocery prices up nearly 3% in April from a year earlier.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Attorney General Pam Bondi refused to answer questions Friday on Donald Trump's involvement in the release of case files on Jeffrey Epstein as she defended the administration's actions before House lawmakers scrutinizing a process that was delayed and included personal information of potential victims.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Attorney General Pam Bondi stood behind the Trump administration's release of the case files on Jeffrey Epstein as she testified Friday before House lawmakers scrutinizing a process that was delayed and included personal information of potential victims.
U.S. President Donald Trump says the U.S. blockade on ships travelling through the Strait of Hormuz “will now be lifted.” “Ships caught in the Strait due to our amazing and unprecedented Naval Blockade, which will now be lifted, may start the process of ‘heading home!’ Say HELLO to your wives, husbands, parents, and families from me, your favorite President!” reads...
China's foreign minister Wang Yi is in Ottawa today, the first such visit in a decade. He is in Canada for a three-day trip that will include meetings with Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand and Prime Minister Mark Carney. The prime minister visited China in January and met with President Xi Jinping.
Employing U.S. President Donald Trump’s marquee slogan, Prime Minister Mark Carney told a New York City business crowd on Thursday that “Canada strong will help make America great again,” a remark the U.S. envoy to this country said was “worth repeating.” Speaking at the Economic Club of New York, the prime minister detailed his economic diversification strategy, and his plans...
Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump are “constantly” in touch and will meet during the G7 summit in France next month as the review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade deal, or CUSMA, is drawing closer, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said Thursday. The trade deal, which was signed in 2018 and touches virtually all trade between Canada, the U.S...
Carney says Canada and U.S. need a 'new partnership.' Prime Minister Mark Carney told a crowd of New York industry titans and financiers on Thursday that Canada and the U.S. need to pursue a new partnership — a bilateral relationship premised not on how things were done in the past but one where a stronger, more independent Canada can selectively...
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Canada this week is significant. It is the first bilateral visit to Canada by a Chinese foreign minister since June 2016, and the most visible sign yet that the thaw in Canada-China relations that began with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s January visit to Beijing is moving into a more consequential implementation phase. If...
In just over a month, North American governments are expected to decide the future of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). More likely, they will decide how to decide that future. It’s still not clear to anyone, probably U.S. trade negotiators included, how this first six-year review of CUSMA will play out.
Over a century ago, Max Weber observed in Politics as a Vocation that “one can say that three pre-eminent qualities are decisive for the politician: passion, a feeling of responsibility, and a sense of proportion.” Once detached from responsibility and objective judgment, passion becomes a mere sentiment staged as action, a gesture absorbed in itself and blind to the consequences...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
“Despite the ongoing conflict between Hezbollah and Israel which has resulted in thousands of deaths and injuries…Lebanon moved forward with the ban on antipersonnel landmines,” said the Ottawa-based group Mines Action Canada in a statement, celebrating the new addition.
Canada’s privacy laws are supposed to protect ordinary citizens from unwarranted intrusions into their personal lives. But they can also protect pedophiles. Dead pedophiles. Dead pedophiles from America.
If you want to sound wise these days, just blame the crazy state of the world on polarization. If you want to sound really wise, say that fighting polarization needs to be part of the political agenda and be sure to blame social media and Donald Trump (although not necessarily in that order) for the current chaos. Despite it being...
Peter Mazereeuw speaks with Monte Solberg, a former Alberta MP and federal minister, about the Alberta independence movement, why he thinks Albertans should vote to reject a referendum on separation, and what role Prime Minister Mark Carney should play in the campaign to remain.
At Issue this week: Prime Minister Mark Carney tells U.S. investors that Canada 'will help make America great again.' Climate frustrations push Steven Guilbeault to quit politics. And Alberta’s separatist moves are slammed as a threat to national unity.
As separatist sentiment swirls across Alberta, the country has been holding it's breath and wondering: "will we face another separation referendum?" It seemed inevitable, as Premier Danielle Smith changed the rules to make putting a referendum forward easier. But a court decision rejected their petition on the grounds that Indigenous peoples who would be affected were not properly consulted. Smith...
The last week of the month means it's an "ask me anything" Thursday, and once again, lots of questions from across the country. Questions about journalism, about politics, about everything from Snowbirds to Donald Trump.
